The effect of talk and instructional mode on enhancing secondary English students’ interpretation of, response to, and appreciation for short fiction

Abstract

Reading practices in high school English language arts should lead students to write richer, more developed responses to literature. Teacher-led, reflective, and performance-based instructional modes were combined with either talk or writing to produce six activities for enhancing response. A repeated measures design varied the order of the six learning activities for three classes (n=44) in a Midwest suburban high school. Later written responses were scored for interpretation, response, and appreciation. Pearson correlations revealed the task and criteria were reliable. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) found that for interpretation and response, talking led to higher achievement. Conversely, writing was nearly superior to talk for appreciation. Practice and feedback may be more significant than instructional condition for raising the quality of response.